Hey there Tez,
I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard people ask for something similar
to what your looking for. I hope that my favorite sources are what
you are looking for.
First of all, PoliSci.com is an online political reference Almanac
that is just great. As a matter of fact, it is the online version of
The Political Reference Almanac, so if you needed hard copy
information of all this, you can find it all in the current Almanac
for 2002-2003. The URL for the web site is
http://www.polisci.com/
and you can access the almanac by selecting the “Almanac” button at
the top of the page. The almanac itself divided into sections labled:
Calendar, Executive, Legislative, Judicial, State/Local, Parties,
Nations, Organizations, Documents and Economics.
For the specific information you are looking for, there is a table of
all current nations, their area in square miles, population and
current leader; “Nations and Territories Summary.”
http://www.polisci.com/almanac/nations.htm
Here is a sample from that table, (It’s a vertical table, but it
didn’t paste that way. I’m sure you can see how it’s supposed to
work):
Name
Area
(sq. mi.)
Population
Head(s) of State
Head(s) of Government
Afghanistan
251,826
25,838,797
Head of the Supreme Council Mullah Mohammad Rabbani
Albania
11,100
3,490,435
President Rexhep Mejdani; Prime Minister Ilir Meta
This table could probably be printed out in four pages. Slightly
longer than your two page request, but it’s great information.
Another feature available on the Nations page is a summary of National
Leaders:
“The following is a regime and leadership history of each nation that
has existed since the end of World War II (1945). Under each nation,
an accounting of each historical state of sovereignty is noted in
italics. Official names of each regime are further underlined.
Following each major sovereignty classification is a list of the heads
of state and of government for that entity, arranged by their official
titles. In some cases the head of state and the head of government are
the same, while in still others there are often more than one head of
state. For selected nations, political party affiliations of leaders
have also been given, with a key to the party abbreviations for that
nation following its entry.”
What you do is select a country from a pop-up list, and you are
returned the following information.
And here’s a sample:
Bahrain
territory of United Kingdom (1861-1971)
protectorate (1880-1971)
Ruler
1942-61 Sheikh Sulman ibn Hamad Al Khalifah
1961-71 `Isa ibn Sulman al-Khalifah
President of the State Council
1970-71 Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa
independent nation since August 14, 1971
State of Bahrain (1971-)
Emir
1971-99 `Isa ibn Sulman al-Khalifah
1999-99 Sheikh Hamad ibn `Isa Al Khalifah
Prime Minister
1971-99 Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa
The great thing about this site and the hard copy of the Almanac is
that they each contain the other information you were looking for.
Under organizations you can find information like the following on
about 115 multilateral organizations along with all the Missions,
Agencies and Organs of the UN. Here’s a sample:
Central American Common Market [CACM]
c/o SIECA, Apartado Postal 1237, 4a Avenida 10-25, Zona 14, Guatemala
01901, Guatemala
[502] (2) 682151
Established: December 13, 1960
Purpose: to promote establishment of a Central American Common Market
Membership: 5 members (Costa Rica; El Salvador; Guatemala; Honduras;
Nicaragua)
I am assuming you are an instructor looking for a page or booklet to
use as a handout. I would think that using the information right from
The Political Reference Almanac would be ideal, being as how it’s a
reference source anyway. It would also make a good online reference
for reports and such.
Another great reference source for political information is the CIA’s
World Fact Book…that’s right, the CIA puts it out. Here’s the URL:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
They don’t put the information in easy, simple and concise table
format, but they do offer a button for a “print friendly page” of
their information. Here’s a sample:
Introduction
Argentina
______________________________________
Background:
Following independence from Spain in 1816, Argentina experienced
periods of internal political conflict between conservatives and
liberals and between civilian and military factions. After World War
II, a long period of Peronist authoritarian rule and interference in
subsequent governments was followed by a military junta that took
power in 1976. Democracy returned in 1983, and numerous elections
since then have underscored Argentina's progress in democratic
consolidation.
Geography
Argentina
Location:
Southern South America, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean, between
Chile and Uruguay
Geographic coordinates:
34 00 S, 64 00 W
Map references:
South America
Area:
total: 2,766,890 sq km
land: 2,736,690 sq km
water: 30,200 sq km
Area - comparative:
slightly less than three-tenths the size of the US
Land boundaries:
total: 9,665 km
border countries: Bolivia 832 km, Brazil 1,224 km, Chile 5,150 km,
Paraguay 1,880 km, Uruguay 579 km
Coastline:
4,989 km
___________________________________
This information continues down the page…looks to me to be about 4 or
5 pages in length if you were to print it out. On all their countries
pages, they offer information on Geography, People, Government,
Economy, Communications, Transportation, Military, and what I find
most interesting is the Transnational Issues at the bottom of each
page. Here it is for the sample of Argentina above:
____________________________________
Transnational Issues
Argentina
Disputes - international:
claims UK-administered Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas); claims
UK-administered South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands;
territorial claim in Antarctica partially overlaps British and Chilean
claims
Illicit drugs:
used as a transshipment country for cocaine headed for Europe and the
US; increasing use as a money-laundering center; domestic consumption
of drugs in urban centers is increasing
___________________________________
I hope that these two sources offer you enough of the information you
were looking for. If I can clarify or provide more information, don’t
hesitate to ask.
Kutsavi |
Request for Answer Clarification by
tez-ga
on
18 Dec 2002 21:28 PST
Howdy kutsavi!
Thanks for your fast response. We seem to enjoy some of the same
reference works -- I haven't looked at a Political Reference Almanac
in a few years, but I certainly have a CIA Factbook and a number of
smaller reference works close at hand. Let me clarify my question a
little --
What I am not looking for -
.I'm NOT looking for collections of facts; these are rarely overviews
(save for the cases where the facts are carefully selected for some
illustrative purpose). http://www.polisci.com/almanac/nations.htm
.I'm NOT looking only for information on the type-of-government of
various nations; many of the most important world political structures
are international bodies, or structures within a major government.
As for what I AM looking for -
.A narrative description of the state of the world, which summarizes
data with good, clear prose. "The world contains 6 billion people
governed by 200 geographically-defined countries (10,000 - 1 billion
people in size), a handful of large tribes unattached to specific
countries, a handful of worldwide organs(both religious and
political), 10-20 major multinational organs, a profusion of official
international treaties and alliances (almost all from the past 60
years), and the direct influence of the foreign policies of the 5-10
most powerful countries."
.A comparison of major international political structures with the
national political structures of major world players. [e.g.,
comparing the amount of foreign aid the IMF hands out each year to the
amount the US does]
.A true overview that manages, by focusing on what is most important,
to merge any different sources of information into a unified concept
of the world as a single political conglomerate. [In which realms does
the UN have final say in world politics? What purpose do
international standards bodies and treaty organizations play? Which
groups provide checks and balances on which other groups?]
For instance, a brief mention of the
executive/legislative/judicial/canonical split in most western
first-world nations [which each have major foreign policy and foreign
aid bureaucracies], and general description of the way that UN policy
and international treaties affect these nations, would be extremely
useful in understanding how networks of international policy develop.
It would be difficult to produce a 2-page overview of current world
political structures while devoting a line to each country! Rather,
more space would have to be devoted to the major world structures (the
UN, governments of larger countries) and less to smaller, isolated, or
transient structures.
The only such overviews I know of are 'short articles' in
encyclopedias, and I have not found any article which addresses the
broad topic of "what political structures keep the world's wheels
turning". Do you know of one that does?
*That* would make a fabulous handout, giving everything else context.
As for the Extra Bonus aspect of the question - consider an
overview such as the above, which takes into account the vast
political influence of Coca-Cola, Pepsico, and McDonalds when they
move into poorer nations; Int'l Red Cross/Crescent and Peace Corps
programs [and their equivalents from other internationally-minded
first-world countries]; OPEC, the US Fed, and other orgs that have the
power to provoke worldwide economic reactions; etc.
I didn't mean for this clarification to get so long, but I hope
we're on the same wavelength now!
Regards,
Tez-ga
|
,
0 Comments
)